NIce Warrior!

lukewarm

Will spring never come?

Dive Dive Dive!

Is it wrong of me - actually of both Lesley and me - that our main thought about tonight's upcoming DW isn't "ooh, Ice Warriors" or "oo, Gatiss", or even "Ooh, David Warner," but is in fact "Hey, Davos Seaworth - talk about typecasting!"

Anyway, only a couple of hours to go, and I wanted to post the above, so may as well open the poll thread!

My only concern about this episode is that all BBC descriptions call the setting "a Russian submarine", whereas it should be "a Soviet submarine", which it so far seems only Wikipedia has amended.

That may sound like a nitpick, but it may be a sign that they are planning to do the whole episode -called "Cold War"!- pretending that there was no such thing as the USSR or communism, which would be really disappointing, as there are so many great angles you can take with the episode's premise which that would spoil.

I hope we see at least one Hammer & Sickle flag somewhere, or maybe a small Lenin statue.

Much better than last week. Very 'Alien' in places, hunting something nasty through a confined space, but Doctor Who has 'borrowed' ideas from other sources before. The redesign of the Ice Warrior looks even better on screen than in still pictures.

Good performances all round, good music (and not intrusive this week). Skaldak's face when seen was decent CGI, though not entirely convincing. The exterior shots of the sub were excellent.

Missed the start, but gave this a Nice Warrior! based on what I did see. This was a very good old-school romp and for my money the best of the 2013 batch so far. Good to see Warner and Cunningham on the show, and I thought I detected one or two minor nods to Warner's prior association with the franchise. Jenna-Louise Coleman continues to impress, too.

I thought of the HADS the moment the TARDIS started wheezing. Hasn't been used on-screen since The Krotons, if I recall. That and the setting gave this what I can describe as a Troughtonesque feel.

The Ice Warrior impressed. Great use of the voice, and nice to see Gatiss doing something new with the concept by having this one out of armour. Speaking of Gatiss, I think this is probably his most robust Who episode to date.

Did anyone take note when the Ice Warrior mentioned the "old times" and it seemed to put the Doctor almost off-kilter? It took me back to Lady Peinforte's conversation with the Doctor in the 25th anniversary story Silver Nemesis, which I think is being added to the iPlayer catalogue today. In that story Peinforte referred to the "Old Time" on Gallifrey, a time of chaos, and raised what we now think of as the First Question. Could be nothing, of course.

I liked that the threat was taken seriously. It was worse in the RTD era but Moffat is often equally as guilty of just making the whole situation a joke to try and appear subversive (Let's Kill Hitler being the worst offender!). It was nice to see our heroes scared of a tough enemy for a change.

A fun Dr Who, though not as deep as last week's, but then they can't all be, can they? That said, it was, how shall we say, built entirely from references to other DW stories and various movies. On the plus side, it *just* avoided triggering me to tears at an early point (and probably just by editing - I suspect if the time slot was a few seconds longer it would have - and would have pissed me off as that'd have been three weeks running), and Warner and Cunningham were fantastic.

I can actually nitpick the sets and militaria to quite a degree this week, though - I've been aboard a cold war era former Soviet sub, and they're nothing like that bloody spacious (I know, a production necessity), nor do they have smooth floors, refer to the control room as the bridge, nor have FN Browning Hi-Powers as the crew's sidearms. Though it's nice to see the AKs (or more likely Norinco copies) actually used in the correct period, rather than the year five billion for a change...

If we're talking about niggles, I 'mm also not sure that the missile could still launch while on the surface if they'd been prepped for launch at depth, the 'five thousand years' line would mean that Skaldak was frozen one to three thousand years before Varga (your Ice Warriors dating may vary), and that Martian shiip was a darn sight more capable than the ones Slaar had a century-ish later (byut then, most Troughton era alien fleets were unrealistically rubbish, still dependent on 1950s navigation tech).
All niggles... a good solid 7 or 8/10 monster at large story. The sort of thing that comes top of the polls in a weak season, second from last in a great one, mid-range in most.

It was ok. Unobjectionable. The atmosphere was there and the sets were completely convincing (the question of "isn't this a bit big for a sub" didn't occur to me, but I am thick). A shame the story itself was a bit perfunctory. Good performances too.